Gates, a Dallas native, lifelong Catholic, and 1982 graduate of the Ursuline Academy of Dallas, is arguably among the most influential philanthropists in the world. With her husband, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, she directs a foundation worth almost $34 billion. Normally, she does this with as much reserve and as little fanfare as a billionaire named Gates can possibly manage.

Last week, however, she raised some eyebrows, including those of Dallas Bishop Kevin Farrell, when she reiterated in an interview with Newsweek her support for family planning, including a massive financial commitment by the foundation to distribute contraceptives in developing countries around the world.

She mentioned that even though Catholic teaching forbids the use of of artificial contraception, some of the Ursuline nuns who taught her back in Dallas (when she was Melinda French) are quietly supporting her in this cause.

In light of recent news events, Bishop Kevin J. Farrell reminds all faithful that the Catholic Church is unwavering in Her teaching which states that through Divine Law, God is the giver of life. Human life and the duty and privilege of transmitting it are not limited to the horizons of this life only. As Catholics, God has empowered us to be partners with him and through mutual self-giving be open to his plan for new life. Human sexuality and sexual expression in marriage are among God’s greatest gifts. Artificial contraception violates the meaning of this gift. The mutual unconditional gift that a married couple offers to one another in love must remain open to render them co-creators with God in new life. Every Catholic has a serious responsibility to inform themselves about this teaching and to form their consciences in its light.

We are proud of Melinda French Gates, her dedication to social justice, her compassion for the underserved, and the great work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Melinda Gates leads from her conscience, and acts on her beliefs as a concerned citizen of our world. …

As a Catholic educational ministry, Ursuline is committed to the moral and doctrinal teachings of the Catholic Church. We recognize that Melinda’s beliefs on birth control are different from those of the Catholic Church. We respect her right, however, to speak from her research and experience of the world we live in.

The Daily Beast, Newsweek’s web partner, reports that this summer, the Gates Foundation and the British government will organize “a summit of world leaders in London … to start raising the $4 billion the foundation says it will cost to get 120 million more women access to contraceptives by 2020.”

And the foundation’s efforts won’t be limited to poor countries:

[I]n a move that could be hugely significant for American women, it is pouring money into the long-neglected field of contraceptive research, seeking entirely new methods of birth control. Ultimately Gates hopes to galvanize a global movement. “When I started to realize that that needed to get done in family planning, I finally said, OK, I’m the person that’s going to do that,” she says.

Gates reached this decision, she says, knowing fully that her efforts are at odds with Catholic teaching on the use of artificial contraception.

Gates says she has long disagreed with that teaching, and in this regard, she is hardly alone among. When a CBS News poll last year asked Catholics whether they thought “someone who practices artificial birth control can still be a good Catholic,” 84 percent said yes, 11 percent said no, and 5 percent weren’t sure.

Gates said that in deciding to publicly champion the cause of family planning, “I had to wrestle with which pieces of religion do I use and believe in my life, what would I counsel my daughters to do.”

She told Newsweek: “From the very beginning, we said that as a foundation we will not support abortion, because we don’t believe in funding it.”

But on the matter of contraception, defying the church seemed to her to be the morally correct thing to do. Otherwise, The Daily Beast quotes her as saying, “we’re not serving the other piece of the Catholic mission, which is social justice.”

Her first public speech on the subject was at a conference in April in Berlin. In that speech, according to The Daily Beast, she mentioned the Ursuline nuns, who “made service and social justice a high priority.”

Later, she says, she heard from some of those nuns.

“They said, ‘We’re all for you. We know this is a difficult issue to speak on, but we absolutely believe that you’re living under Catholic values.’ And it was just so heartening.”

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